When Michael Hall made a routine call to technical support for a laptop purchased from a major (and allegedly Linux-friendly) hardware vendor, the first piece of advice he got was "dump Linux." Learn about how to make all the wrong moves in this informal "tech support HOWNOTTO:"

There's a country song that describes the Linux phenomenon perfectly. It's called "Overnight Sensation," and it just so happens that my old girlfriend, Joni Mehler, wrote it. Everyone should have at least one ex-girlfriend who writes country songs, don't you think? Anyway, maybe you've heard this song. It goes…

"It took 20 long years to be an overnight sensation,

How could overnight take so many years?

This summer, CompTIA will add another Linux certification to the fray -- that of Linux+ (pronounced "Linux plus"). This is a one-exam certification -- good for life -- on vendor-neutral topics similar to the other two certifications. Beta testing began June 22nd and will continue for one month. The live exam is scheduled to appear by September.

theKompany.com, in response to the tremendous demand to get the DocBrowser either as a stand alone to compliment a different developer IDE or to upgrade a standard edition of KDE Studio Gold, have announced the release of DocBrowser 3.0. the release is a perfect compliment for any KDE development, be it KDE Studio Gold, KDevelop or any other of your favorite environment. It allows you to read documentation in a variety of formats and for a variety of special sub-systems.

"Microsoft understands that GPL is a marketing scheme aimed right at their heart. First, GPL code will always result in a far earlier implementation of a new software idea to hit the market. Second, it `scorches the earth' because once the implementation exists, it kills competitive development that's based on a proprietary model. The situation has already done lots of damage to proprietary software patents. GPL makes it extremely easy to do prior art searches. As a result, patent challengers are having an easier and easier time getting patents invalidated.

As the new owner of this leading backup technology, TOLIS Group will be providing backup and recovery solutions that are based upon the most reliable backup technology available. BRU is the proven backup engine that has evolved over 16 years and continues to provide reliable data protection on UNIX and Linux based systems worldwide.

"The specialized computer press really doesn't understand Linux. As a matter of fact, quite contrary to the rules of logic in this case, the popular press, epitomized by Websites like CNN's, actually does a better job at reporting fairly on the Linux phenomenon. However, when you go over to the press that's supposed to know what it's talking about when it reports on IT developments, the fairly well-researched and objective writing about Linux gets pretty scarce. I'll chalk the reason for this up to the meal-ticket-syndrome," says Michael J Jordan.

Some followup on the Burlington story that generated some excitement a while back as the company readys a deployment of PoS terminals as well. The article also mentions that Linux's share in this arena has grown to upwards of eight percent even as Musicland may be deciding against its own previously-planned Linux deployment.

It is clearly time for India to join the Free Software movement. Urged by this firm belief and commitment, a group of Free Software practitioners and enthusiasts in India have been successful in persuading Richard Stallman to establish an Indian Chapter of FSF. The Free Software Foundation of India (FSF-I) will be inaugurated by Stallman on July 20 in Trivandrum at the Freedom First! conference. This article goes into some friendly detail about the history of Unix, the GNU project, and Linux.

Telnet and ftp send passwords over the network in clear text that can be easily

sniffed. You should replace them with more modern tools such as ssh and scp.

SSLtelnet/SSLftp are also available but do not seem to be in such wide use.

SSH is a better telnet than telnet -- it even handles remote X sessions transparently,

letting you ssh into another machine and run X aps there with the display automagically